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Augusta man convicted of rape, other charges Thursday

A jury on Thursday convicted an Augusta man of crimes committed in a brutal attack on a couple that left them seriously injured.

Johnny L. Baker, 38, could spend the rest of his life in prison. The Richmond County Superior Court jury found Baker guilty of rape, aggravated sodomy, kidnapping, false imprisonment, burglary and two counts of aggravated assault.

On March 20, Baker crawled through a window of a woman’s home in the middle of the night. He beat her boyfriend with a weapon that the victim described as like a sawed-off broom handle – leaving knots on his head, welts on his neck and back, and breaking his hands, one so badly that he has undergone three surgeries.

Baker then went after the woman, dragging her by the hair into the living room, punching her in the face while holding a box cutter, and raping and sodomizing her. A bite on the side of her head left a large circular bruise and cut into her ear.

“These people are lucky to be alive,” Markwalter said. Neither could identify the masked attacker, but Baker’s DNA was collected through the rape kit, he said.

The woman also gave sheriff investigators a lead. Her attacker was wearing a black leather coat. She had seen a man living in the trailer park where she had recently moved who wore a similar coat. A DNA comparison to the rape kit proved Baker was the rapist, Markwalter said.

Defense attorney Peter Johnson attacked the validity of the DNA in the case, arguing that it wasn’t proof that they heard but a laboratory scientist’s opinion.

Johnson said he had called Sgt. Jim Gordon of the sheriff’s crime scene division to testify because no blood was detected on any of the items confiscated from Baker’s home – pants, black leather jacket, box cutter, stick and gloves.